Word Food: Lucky & F**k Corruption

Pushback Talks Season 9 is here - with "Word Food" back on the menu!

This season, Fredrik & Leilani return with their signature bite-sized episodes: sharp, surprising, 15-minute explorations of the words that shape our world. Each week, they pick a single word (or two) and unpack how its simple surface hides deeper social, political, and economic realities.

Think of it as thought-provoking “intellectual snacking” -  quick enough for your commute, rich enough to shift how you see power, privilege, and the systems around us.

Kicking off Season 9:

F**k Corruption: a raw look at the roots of corruption, who benefits, who pays the price, and how it quietly reshapes the world we live in.
Lucky: a candid reflection on privilege, chance, and the uncomfortable truth of how “luck” is unevenly distributed between the Global North and the rest of the world.

New episodes drop every week.
Make this your ritual for keeping your curiosity - and your resistance - alive!

Transcript

Fredrik Gertten 0:02

I'm Fredrik Gertten and I'm the filmmaker.

Leilani Farha 0:05

And I'm Leilani Farha, and I'm the advocate.

Fredrik Gertten 0:08

And we are back, Leilani. I miss you. I haven't seen you for such a long time.

Leilani Farha 0:14

It's been a very long time.

Fredrik Gertten 0:16

Somebody tells me that you are writing a book.

Leilani Farha 0:20

I'm writing a book. I didn't know we were gonna put that on the airwaves.

Fredrik Gertten 0:24

Tell us a little bit. I mean, if you don't have to reveal any big, but you're writing a book. Okay. Leilani is writing a book. Now you know. And later, when you meet her, you can ask her about the book. When it's, you know. But it's, I guess, intense, a lot of work.

Leilani Farha 0:40

It's very intense. The timelines are short. It was a commissioned book. We'll put it that way. I have to have it, a draft finished by January, end of January. So it's soon.

Fredrik Gertten 0:54

But you know what you'll do in Christmas.

Leilani Farha 0:56

It's good. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm taking a break at Christmas. Um, but yeah, it's it's intense, it's really hard, and I'm really enjoying it. Good.

Fredrik Gertten 1:09

Happy to hear. Yeah. And uh yeah, I'm in I'm in the finals of editing a film that is happening in a place very close to where you are right now. South Africa.

Leilani Farha 1:23

South Africa.

Fredrik Gertten 1:24

And you are in South Africa in Cape Town.

Leilani Farha 1:26

I'm in Cape Town. And when is your film coming out?

Fredrik Gertten 1:30

Uh next year, sometimes, you never know. But it's yeah, it's it's a long, long journey to make films. But it's coming, it's coming, it's getting closer and closer. So we we can then talk about your book and my film. Exactly. And but now we are we decided to because we with this summer we had this the word food.

Leilani Farha 1:51

Yes, word salad.

Fredrik Gertten 1:52

It's fun, and we didn't need any guests because booking guests takes a lot of work. And when you are writing a book and I'm in the finals of the film, we are a little bit too busy. And as you might know, dear listeners, we don't have any fundings for this podcast, so it's it's a bit of a struggle to find the time and to to make it. But we we want to feed you with more inspiration, especially also feed you with Leilani's beautiful face.

Leilani Farha 2:24

Oh luckily, this is a podcast, and most people are probably just listening and not looking.

Fredrik Gertten 2:33

So, but Leilani, let's go. Ladies first. So you will have to shoot. You have to shoot.

Leilani Farha 2:41

I don't know how much of a lady I am. In fact, I'm watching this show that's all about ladies, and I'm definitely not a lady. Yes, downtown Abbey, downtown Abbey. Uh, but I'll go first anyway. I'm gonna give you the word that some people will see is on my t-shirt, and it is lucky.

Fredrik Gertten 3:05

Lucky me to start with something so positive. Lucky. Are you lucky, Sleilani? Are you lucky? I'm very lucky. I think I'm also I'm also lucky because I have the privilege to work with things that I like to do. I mean, I'm a curious person, I want to be a part of a global conversation, I I still am. And uh I think that's a sense of of luck and meaning of life. And uh then also I have the privilege to work with, I have the luck to work with people like you. That keeps me lucky. I mean, even if I was really stressed this morning, but when I see your face, I come in here, I see you over there, I feel lucky. So so we're lucky.

Leilani Farha 3:59

You're so nice. They're so nice. I'm lucky for that, but I think I'm also lucky, let's face it. I was lucky to be born in the north and the west, even though my parents and I have 100% Arab ethnicity. Uh, I have all of the benefits of growing up in a developed world, a lot of drawbacks too, but a lot of luck there. I have the luck of a good socioeconomic background. I didn't choose any of that. I was lucky to be born into it. And it means I do have a good life all up. I do have a good life, and I'm lucky to have amazing friends and family, for sure.

Fredrik Gertten 4:52

But then you inherited some of the colonial pain also in your in your family story. So that there is somewhere in you, there is it also um a trauma that you got from the generations before you, from your parents who lost land in Palestine and so on.

Leilani Farha 5:11

Very much, very much. And shocking to me how in the last two years, since October 7th and since this horrible genocide in Gaza, how it's revealed itself to me. Like I always knew of my funny positioning in the Western world, never feeling like I quite fit in, never. And I knew why, but it now it's like really centered in me. I have a very deep understanding of how the world is structured and who counts and who doesn't.

Fredrik Gertten 5:44

And I think you're now in South Africa, and in South Africa, uh, you've been around Cape Town, you see the the the word Gaza and Palestine is everywhere. Because in South Africa, everybody knows that the experience that the Palestinians are suffering is the is their own experience, it's their own colonial history, their own apartheid history. So it's it's interesting to be in South Africa. I spent a lot of time there the last years, and I can really feel it, the solidarity with Palestine.

Leilani Farha 6:14

It's it's it's incredible, absolutely. And I went to this neighborhood uh called, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, you can correct me, Frederick, but Bolkap. And it's uh predominantly but not exclusively Muslim uh community. It's actually quite mixed, so lots of black South Africans and colored South Africans. Um I'm not sure what percentage is white, but it was certainly mixed. And there they have this total solidarity with Palestinians, and there's these these murals, they're quite famous now. There's 76 murals now devoted to Palestine.

Fredrik Gertten 6:53

There's a cultural center in the middle, and that's where the big one is. Yeah.

Leilani Farha 6:56

That's right, exactly.

Fredrik Gertten 6:58

We filmed there for the diff for the new film. Fantastic. And Sylvia, who I work with in the film, she's born in Bookup.

Leilani Farha 7:04

So you know it much better than I was just there visiting and went to the oldest spice market. And but it's a community under threat as well. So really, I mean, they resisted apartheid, they remained there, they didn't get forcibly relocated, and now they're up against financial actors' gentrification. So a very special community and showing complete solidarity with Palestine. Amazing. It's amazing to be here. I have to say that.

Fredrik Gertten 7:33

It's you're lucky to be there.

Leilani Farha 7:35

I'm lucky to be here.

Fredrik Gertten 7:37

Then it's over for me. I have to pass your word. Okay. Are you ready? Yes. I will I will do it by taking off my shirt. Now we have no one.

Leilani Farha 7:49

No one wants to see this retro. Oh, okay, folks. Well, you want to say it. You give me the words.

Fredrik Gertten 7:59

It's um two words. Two words. And you can choose any of them or the combination. It's fuck and it's corruption. It's a t-shirt I got from the Transparency International Global Conference. It was last year in Lithuania where I showed Breaking Social. Right. Uh so it's Transparency International, a very important anti-corruption uh organization. Leilani, fuck corruption.

Leilani Farha 8:29

Fuck corruption. Let's just chant that.

Fredrik Gertten 8:32

Fuck corruption.

Leilani Farha 8:35

You know what's so so interesting is in all the years that I've worked with you, Frederick, I don't think either you or I have worn a t-shirt with uh words on it. And now we're starting to express ourselves with our t-shirts. What does that say about us? We're desperate. Uh things are getting desperate. Uh fuck corruption. There is so much corruption. And I think, like so much of the way the world has been structured, people often would think of corruption in developing countries in the global south, the, you know, the African leaders who are totally corrupt and, you know, exiting money to Switzerland. You know, you think of the Nigerian leaders who who are doing this, other leaders. And I think there's been such a revolution around the understanding of who is corrupt and where is corruption um rooted, and the way in which it's rooted, not just in the West, but of course in these billionaires, who, of course, come from many different countries. Billionaires span the globe. They are their own class of people and completely corrupt, not paying taxes, and certainly not their sh fair share of taxes, hiding money, creating networks of power. So I say fuck corruption.

Fredrik Gertten 10:04

Remember in Push, we we met with um the Italian writer Roberto Saviano? Absolutely. And he says London is the money laundering capital of the world. I think that is also true, but it means that a lot of the the lot of the energy that creates corruption also comes from from the UK or from New York, or you know, if it's from our big big Western capitals.

Leilani Farha 10:33

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 10:34

And here you have all the lawyers, all the people who are who are organizing this crime. I think also then in I that little thread made me really curious about this. So in when I made Breaking Social, I went out to meet uh Sarah Chase, who is a global leading anti-corruption specialist. And and she started off with, you know, she worked in Afghanistan, and she could see also how corruption was like a system, and how that system also pushed people into the arms of the all of the Talibans, because where could they go, you know, in the end. And but she also she made it then a book about called Sieves of State, and that was of course about this kind of um totally corrupt countries, but then she took the same pattern that she found in the in these corrupt countries and moved it to her own country, the United States. And the pattern fit. And this was before Trump got elected again, and now I mean it's the corruption is I don't know, it's it's out in the open, you know. He had now opened a new gallery to the White House, and it's all paid by big business, and it's it's like it's he created a Maro Lago club inside the White House, and it's openly corruption, you know, to they pay him to get legislation, to get trade wars against Europe. I mean, all the big tech firms are coming to Trump now to ask him to push Europe not to be tough on Twitter, Facebook, and ever, whatever, which we we need to regulate, you know, uh because the algorithms are are pushing uh right-wing fascism and so on. But they pay him to push Europe.

Leilani Farha 12:26

Yep.

Fredrik Gertten 12:27

That's big time corruption. So fuck corruption. We need to fuck corruption all of us together.

Leilani Farha 12:34

Absolutely. And Sarah was on pushback talks, we interviewed her, I remember it quite well. It was very eye-opening. And it seems to me what you're saying, Frederick, and what she says sort of, I'm gonna do a shorthand here, but corruption has been legalized, systematized, and normalized. So it's in our every system. It's it's the way the world is structured now to sanction and to support corruption. It's it's actually a bit mind-boggling when you think about what it is, all of these systems, et cetera, that need to be brought down and recreated.

Fredrik Gertten 13:19

I think it's quite hopeful, uh, because we have a tendency of thinking that corruption is something that happens in restaurants in in small Italian towns, you know. Right. Uh and and when we understand this is a global system, it it's easier for us to push our own politicians to regulate, uh, you know, to better protect the laws we have. Uh, even if we are now losing out the United States of America. I mean, but also in the US, there is a very, very strong opposition. I mean, if the No Kings protests were like the huge 2,700 towns in around the US were out on the streets. So there is something happening. So long live for that. Shall we wrap the lucky fuck corruption little episode? I like it. We are rolling, Leilani. Thank you, and see you soon again. Welcome back, Leilani. This is Pushback Talks, and we are doing a kind of our word food, word play, word salad. And we have this podcast together, we make it for fun, we want to tell inspirational stories, and we don't make any money out of this, so we try to kind of find time to do it. And how do we fund it? Because we still have a technical crew who is editing, and so we are not without cost. How do we fund our podcast, Leilani?

Leilani Farha 14:53

Well, we try to fund it using our Patreon account. If you go to patreon.com, you can support pushback talks, and people do. Yeah, and every little bit helps.

Fredrik Gertten 15:05

And we just recently got a new Patreon, so thank you very much. I will not give out names because I haven't asked for permission, but thank you for every single person who is supporting us. It means a lot because support is also some kind of love going away, and we are addicts of love.

Leilani Farha 15:23

Yes. And for our listeners, become a Patreon supporter because think about all those podcasts you've listened to, or that you've had to turn off because the audio quality is so bad. And we rely on an incredible young guy, Sebastian. There he is in the back if you're watching on YouTube. And he ensures that for our listeners, the quality is fantastic and it makes all the difference. I have turned off many podcasts in my time because I can't stand the quality of the audio. So support us on patreon.com and you'll keep getting this great audio.

Fredrik Gertten 16:03

Thanks, Sebastian. Thanks, Sebastian. And he's a proud father of two, so he's not that young, but he he he's in good shape. He's young to me. He's in good shape. Thank you. See you very soon.

Leilani Farha 16:18

See you next time, Frederick. Bye. Bye.

Kirsten McRae 16:24

Pushback Talks is produced by WG Film. To support the podcast, become a patron by going to patreon.com slash pushback talks. Follow us on social media at make underscore the shift and push underscore the film. Or check out our websites maketheshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breaking socialfilm.com.